Jul 28 2011
D.C May Be In the Rearview, but Its Lessons Are Not Soon Forgotten!
As my internship comes to a close, I am able to look back on my time at the ITA, the people that I have met, and all that I have learned. There is a real sense of duty and honor when one works for the government and I have found this especially true here at the ITA. The directive given to this office by President Obama puts those at the ITA on the front lines of our battle to better this nation. The ITA analyst, sitting in their office behind me, may be directly responsible for putting Americans back to work and laying the next brick in the rebuilding and fortification of our economy.
This internship has impacted me in many ways. The most poignant being the real world applications. Law school has taught me many skills necessary to succeed but law school teaches them in the vacuum of theory and hypotheticals. I have now seen the fruits of my labor in action as I have been able to use some of those skills in the world of the real.
One example of this is my research into the U.S. and the EU’s more than decade long struggle before the WTO. In 1998, the EU banned the addition of growth hormones (used as growth promoters) to livestock feed. The U.S. saw this ban as an illegal restraint on trade and brought the issue before the Dispute Settlement Board of the WTO. The U.S. was victorious and the WTO recommended that the EU either remedy the ban or provide proper scientific data proving that the ban is necessary in the EU. The EU took certain steps to satisfy the WTO but ultimately did not. The EU’s ban on the use of veterinary drugs as growth promoters remains today showing that international disputes can only accomplish so much. International law is based on the premise of compromise and the willingness of nations to keep promises. This certainly creates an imperfect system, but alternatives may prove to be scarier. National sovereignty demands autonomy and the very structure of our national and global systems would likely crumble under their own weight if that is lost.